Architecture: Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Engravings - Grabados - Wiki data en Español and English

Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in | Posted on 22:56





001-Ruinas del Templo del Sol y de la Luna



 002-Teatro de Marcello



003-Vista de la Basilica San Giovanni Laterano




004-Vista de la Basilica y plaza de San Pedro en el Vaticano



005-Vista de la plaza del Monte Cavallo



006-Vista del exterior de la Basilica de San Pedro en el Vaticano



007-Vista del lugar donde estaba el antiguo Foro Romano



008-Vista del puente y castillo de Sant Angelo



Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Mogliano Veneto, cerca de Treviso, 4 de octubre de 1720 – Roma, 9 de noviembre de 1778) fue un arquitecto, investigador y grabador italiano. Realizó más de 2.000 grabados de edificios reales e imaginarios, estatuas y relieves de la época romana así como diseños originales para chimeneas y muebles.



Biografía


Piranesi nació en Mogliano Veneto, que entonces pertenecía a la República de Venecia. Estudió Arquitectura en Venecia con su tío materno Matteo Lucchesi, que era Magistrato delle Acque en la ciudad. Allí descubrió las obras de Palladio, Vitrubio y algunos edificios de la antigüedad. Piranesi apenas llegó a ejercer como arquitecto (sólo se erigió un diseño suyo), si bien sus estudios le permitieron dibujar con mayor facilidad, e hizo gala de su formación firmando algunos grabados como Piranesi architetto.

Se trasladó en 1740 a Roma, junto a Marco Foscarini, enviado del papa en Venecia. Las ruinas del imperio romano encendieron su entusiasmo y la necesidad de representarlas. En aquella época, la arqueología no era aún una ciencia demasiado rigurosa, y en muchas ocasiones se trataba de simple saqueo. Combinando afán descriptivo y fantasía, Piranesi levantó acta de las ruinas romanas y de los hallazgos que se iban produciendo.

Conoció en Roma al erudito G. G. Bottari y aprendió la técnica del aguafuerte con Giuseppe Vasi, con quien firmó algunas imágenes. Sus primeros grabados fueron vistas de la ciudad, destinadas a guías ilustradas. En 1743 publicó su primera gran serie de estampas, Prima Parte di Architettura e Prospettiva. Elaborada con apenas 23 años, desvela ya su maestría como grabador y su inventiva.

Abrió su taller frente a la Academia de Francia en Roma lo cual hizo que viviera en constante relación con los estudiosos de aquel país. Tuvo mucho éxito con sus grabados puesto que la mayoría de los visitantes que iban a Roma gustaban de volver con algún recuerdo, y sus grabados se imprimían en grandes tiradas que los hacían muy asequibles.

En 1761 se convirtió en miembro de la Academia di San Luca. Murió en 1778 y fue enterrado en la única iglesia que construyó: Santa María del Priorato.



Obra


Sus entusiastas reproducciones e interpretaciones de antiguos monumentos romanos supusieron una importante contribución para la formación y desarrollo del neoclasicismo. En estos grabados se incluían imágenes fidedignas y exactas de las ruinas existentes, al igual que reproducciones imaginarias de antiguos edificios en las que la alteración de la escala y la yuxtaposición de elementos contribuyen a realzar el carácter de grandiosidad de los mismos.

Una de las primeras y más renombradas colecciones de grabados de Piranesi fueron sus Prisiones (Carceri d'Invenzione, 1745-1760), en donde transformó las ruinas romanas en fantásticos y desmesurados calabozos dominados por enormes y oscuros pasadizos, empinadas escaleras a increíbles alturas y extrañas galerías que no conducen a ninguna parte. Estos grabados ejercieron una enorme influencia en el romanticismo del siglo XIX, jugando también un destacado papel en el desarrollo, ya en el siglo XX, del surrealismo e incluso en los decorados para el cine de terror.
El Panteón de Agripa de Roma, en un grabado de Piranesi.

Los grabados de Piranesi, muchos de ellos de gran formato y ordenados en libros, se exportaron rápidamente a Inglaterra y otros países, a modo de souvenirs del Grand Tour, antecedente del moderno turismo cultural. Esas láminas influyeron en la arquitectura palaciega, especialmente en las casas campestres inglesas.

Muchas planchas del artista se siguieron imprimiendo hasta principios del siglo XIX y pasaron a la actual Calcografia Nazionale de Roma, fundada por el papa Clemente XII, donde aún se conservan.

Existen grabados de Piranesi en casi todas las bibliotecas antiguas de Europa. En España, destacan los fondos de la Biblioteca Nacional y del Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, que posee unas 880 láminas, casi todas adquiridas en el mismo siglo XVIII.

Sus principales obras como grabador y teórico fueron:

    * 1743: Prima parte di Architettura e Prospettive
    * 1756: Capricci Decorative Romane
    * Le Vedute di Roma
    * 1761: Rovine dell castello dell'Acqua Giulia
    * Lapides Capitolini e il Campo Marcio dell'antica Roma
    * 1763: Descrizione dell'emissario del Lago Albano
    * 1764: Antichitá di Cora
    * 1765: Parere sull'Architettura
    * 1769: Diverse Maniere d'adornare i camini
    * Ragionamento apologetico in difesa dell'architettura egiziana e toscana
    * Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de Romani

Prianesi tan sólo vio construido uno de sus diseños arquitectónicos: la iglesia de Santa María del Priorato en Roma, sede de los caballeros de la Orden de Malta, así como la plaza que da acceso desde el Aventino.



......................................................................................


Giovanni Battista (also Giambattista) Piranesi (4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric "prisons" (Carceri d'Invenzione).



Biography


Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, then part of the Republic of Venice. His brother Andrea introduced him to Latin and the ancient civilization, and later he studied as an architect under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi, who was Magistrato delle Acque, a Venetian engineer who specialized in excavation.

From 1740 he was in Rome with Marco Foscarini, the Venetian envoy to the Vatican. He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi, who introduced him to the art of etching and engraving. After his studies with Vasi, he collaborated with pupils of the French Academy in Rome to produce a series of vedute (views) of the city; his first work was Prima parte di Architettura e Prospettive (1743), followed in 1745 by Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna.
The Pyramid of Cestius, etching.

From 1743 to 1747 he sojourned mainly in Venice where, according to some sources, he frequented Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. He then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. In 1748-1774 he created a long series of vedute of the city which established his fame. In the meantime Piranesi devoted himself to the measurement of much of the ancient edifices: this led to the publication of Antichità Romane de' tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori ("Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic and the First Emperors"). In 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing facility of his own. In 1762 the Campo Marzio dell'antica Roma collection of engravings was printed.

The following year he was commissioned by Pope Clement XIII to restore the choir of San Giovanni in Laterano, but the work did not materialize. In 1764 Piranesi started his sole architectural works of importance, the restoration of the church of Santa Maria del Priorato in the Villa of the Knights of Malta in Rome, where he was buried after his death, in a tomb designed by Giuseppi Angelini.

In 1767 he was created a knight of the Golden Spur, which enabled him henceforth to sign himself "Cav[aliere] Piranesi". In 1769 his publication of a series of ingenious and sometimes bizarre designs for chimneypieces, as well as an original range of furniture pieces, established his place as a versatile and resourceful designer.[1] In 1776 he created his famous Piranesi Vase, his best known work as a 'restorer' of ancient sculpture. In 1777-78 Piranesi published Avanzi degli Edifici di Pesto, (Remains of the Edifices of Paestum) a collection of views of Paestum.

He died in Rome in 1778 after a long illness and buried in the Church of Santa Maria del Priorato, on the Aventine hill in Rome.
The Arch of Trajan at Benevento as it appeared in the 18th century.



The Views (Vedute)

The Colosseum, etching, 1757

The remains of Rome kindled Piranesi's enthusiasm. He was able to faithfully imitate the actual remains of a fabric; his invention in catching the design of the original architect provided the missing parts; his masterful skill at engraving introduced groups of vases, altars, tombs that were absent in reality; and his broad and scientific distribution of light and shade completed the picture, creating a striking effect from the whole view. Some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils.

Piranesi's son and coadjutor, Francesco, collected and preserved his plates, in which the freer lines of the etching-needle largely supplemented the severity of burin work. Twenty nine folio volumes containing about 2000 prints appeared in Paris (1835 - 1837).

The late Baroque works of Claude Lorrain, Salvatore Rosa, and others had featured romantic and fantastic depictions of ruins; in part as a memento mori or as a reminiscence of a golden age of construction. Piranesi's reproductions of real and recreated Roman ruins were a strong influence on Neoclassicism.
Carceri Plate VI - The Smoking Fire.
Carceri Plate VII - The Drawbridge.
Piranesi, Carceri Plate XI - The Arch with a shell ornament.



The Prisons (Carceri)


The Prisons (Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons'), is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second states that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.

These in turn influenced Romanticism and Surrealism. While the Vedutisti (or "view makers") such as Canaletto and Bellotto, more often reveled in the beauty of the sunlit place, in Piranesi this vision takes on a Kafkaesque, Escher-like distortion, seemingly erecting fantastic labyrinthian structures, epic in volume, but empty of purpose. They are cappricci -whimsical aggregates of monumental architecture and ruin.

The series was started in 1745. The first state prints were published in 1750 and consisted of 14 etchings, untitled and unnumbered, with a sketch-like look. The original prints were 16” x 21”. For the second publishing in 1761, all the etchings were reworked and numbered I - XVI (1-16). Numbers II and V were new etchings to the series. Numbers I through IX were all done in portrait format (taller than they are wide), while X to XVI were landscape (wider than they are high). Though untitled, their conventional titles are:

    * I - Title Plate
    * II - The Man on the Rack
    * III - The Round Tower
    * IV - The Grand Piazza
    * V - The Lion Bas-Reliefs
    * VI - The Smoking Fire
    * VII - The Drawbridge
    * VIII - The Staircase with Trophies
    * IX - The Giant Wheel
    * X - Prisoners on a Projecting Platform
    * XI - The Arch with a Shell Ornament
    * XII - The Sawhorse
    * XIII - The Well
    * XIV - The Gothic Arch
    * XV - The Pier with a Lamp
    * XVI - The Pier with Chains

Thomas De Quincey in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1820) wrote the following:

    Many years ago, when I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr. Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist ... which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever: some of them (I describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) representing vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pulleys, levers, catapults, etc., etc., expressive of enormous power put forth, and resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase; and upon it, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself: follow the stairs a little further, and you perceive it come to a sudden abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who had reached the extremity, except into the depths below. ... But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher: on which again Piranesi is perceived, but this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld: and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring labors: and so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall.

An in-depth analysis of Piranesi's Carceri was written by Marguerite Yourcenar in her Dark Brain of Piranesi: and Other Essays (1984). Further discussion of Piranesi and the Carceri can be found in The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi by John Wilton-Ely (1978). The style of Piranesi was imitated by 20th-century forger Eric Hebborn.



Influence on popular culture


The 1978 Science-Fiction novel Fängelsestaden, by the Swedish writer Sam J. Lundwall, was inspired by and featured (under permission) prints from the Carceri.[2][3]

The PlayStation 2 video game Ico is set entirely within a vast castle and features artwork heavily inspired by Piranesi's sketches, the carceri series in particular (use of drawbridges, staircases, sparse vaults, etc.).

Grant Morrison made references to Piranesi in the "Painting that Ate Paris" storyline from his Doom Patrol comic book run.

In The Sound of the Carceri, Yo-Yo Ma performs Bach's "Unaccompanied Cello Suite No 2" in a visual and acoustical setting of Piranesi's carceri etchings, computer rendered in 3-D. Film by Francois Girard, director of The Red Violin, for Sony Classics.[4]

Carceri is a place in the fictional Dungeons and Dragons universe (one of the Outer Planes).

In Lucius Shepard's vampire novel The Golden, the action is set in the vast enclosed environment of Castle Banat, its colossal interiors very closely modelled on those presented in the Carceri.

In the classic film, Name of the Rose, based on the novel by Umberto Eco, the library scenes were inspired by Piranesi's prison series.

In the popular PC game, Counter-Strike: Source, there is a commonly used level titled "Piranesi", which looks heavy distinct to some of Piranesi's castle and dungeon drawings. Whether it is a real place or fictional is unknown.



Wiki links in your language




Piranesi Self-Portrait - Autorretrato












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